If you're a Dolphins fan you need to know who Jon Giesler is

[CF DolFan]

Great article about Jon Geisler being inducted in the Dolphin's Walk of Fame. He was the stud LT before Richmond Webb who once went over two years without giving up a sack! Definitely an unsung hero of the team! Joe rose and Duper were discussing him the other day and there is no doubt he is one of the most respected Dolphins amongst former players, to have played the game.

All the others in his class, from Hall-of-Famer Jason Taylor to the Marks Brothers, Duper and Clayton, to acknowledged Dolphins and community stars like John Offerdahl and Dick Anderson are known and appreciated commodities.

No one knows Giesler too much, except those who played with him. That’s the point of this reward that will play out Dec. 2 before the Dolphins play Buffalo: To honor someone who hasn’t been honored.

The Giesler file starts with his anchoring a line that gave up seven sacks all 1988 and the fact he didn’t give up a sack for 38 straight games. Let’s think of that a moment. More than two years without surrendering a sack.

Can you imagine the analytics we’d hear about that stat in this era? But Giesler played before left tackle was a glamor position or “the blind side” part of sports terminology.

Someone on the Dolphins had to tell him he was working on that 38-game sack-less streak in 1984 when the Dan Marino was breaking passing records.

“I think I said, ‘Really?’ ” he remembers. “But as time went on and I look back, that meant something. People say the quarterback [Marino] had a quick release, which helped. But he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head.”

Giesler, 61, was talking from Nova Scotia, visiting his wife’s home. Even this bit was perfect. He couldn’t make the Dolphins announcement in Wynwood to honor him. This anonymous great was introduced in full invisibility.

He wasn’t anonymous to teammates, of course. They first talk of his toughness. They noticed after a week where his knees couldn’t move they loosened up with shots before games. And after games. And often during them.

“He was the greatest left tackle the Dolphins had — no offense to Richmond Webb,’’ said Nat Moore, the team’s executive vice president. “And tough? They didn’t come tougher.”

“I walked into the training room before one game to get a shot to play, and saw what they were doing to Jon — sucking stuff out of his knee — and said, ‘I’m good, I can run just fine,’ ‘’ Duper said.

There was a cost to such stories, as we keep finding out. Giesler knew it right away. He’s had 28 surgeries since retiring in 1988. That’s nearly one a year. Twelve on his right knee. Three on his lower back. Ankle. Shoulder. Elbow.

“People ask me what my hobby is and I say, ‘Surgery,’’ Giesler said.

He figures he would have changed some things if he knew the cost in the coming years. Maybe sit out a game or even a year to help his body — “like the players would today,’’ he said. “We were winning, though, and I wanted to be part of the success.”

He came from a different time in football. All these honorees did, really. That’s the common link when yesterday meets for awards like this Walk of Fame. Dick Anderson was drafted in 1968 and remembers hearing about it on the radio while driving in Colorado.

Duper was playing dominos in his Northwestern (La.) State dorm when he got a call from player personnel director Charley Winner, saying, “You’re the Dolphins second-round pick.” Duper hung up the phone. He didn’t know what to say.

Offerdahl got a phone call from San Francisco coach Bill Walsh during the 1986 draft. The 49ers were going to draft him, Walsh said. He then saw the 49ers trade the pick on TV. That’s how he became a Dolphin.

Giesler sat at his parents’ home in Woodville, Ohio, when the Dolphins coach, Don Shula, called in 1979. The Dolphins were the one team he didn’t work out with. So naturally they took him.

“You never know where it’s all going to go,’’ he said

Now he knows. He protected Dolphins quarterbacks in two Super Bowls, played to his own physical detriment and now gets his name engraved in the concrete outside Hard Rock Stadium in a way that introduces his story to everyone.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/miami-dolphins/fl-sp-hyde-giesler-dolphins-20180710-story.html

[Dolphster]

Excellent article.  Thanks for sharing it.  I'm old enough to remember Giesler playing.  Dude never got the recognition he deserved. 

[Phishfan]

I've got a Giesler card in my collection